Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Loving The 'Unlovable' - What A Pile Of *&^$!
The post I wrote yesterday about how the church witnesses to the less-than-desirable in our comunities continues to haunt me.
I remember my old Young Life days when we used to be told that our job was to learn how to love the unlovable. Would somebody please tell me what that is all about? It sounds good, but what a pile of garbage.
You see, the fact of the matter is we are all unlovable. And yet, we are all loved. Do you honestly think God bases our "lovability" on things like how we dress, or whether we are "gawky," or "developmentally disabled," or just a plain old "nerd?" Anybody who answered that rhetorical question in the affirmative can leave the building and come back when they figure it out.
God judges our "lovability" on the basis of our sinful state, and you know what?
If we judge someone as "unlovable" we are clearly not viewing them with God's eyes. We are clearly viewing them in accordance with some standard of our own. And that standard of our own is a problem, a big problem
Next time you are finding someone's company wearing on you, or the next time you are trying to figure out how to handle someone's "inappropriate" behavior, just remember how God views your behavior (it's a lot more than merely inappropriate) and remember He went ahead and got curcified for you anyway. Maybe that will make it a little easier to tolerate that nerd the next time you run into him.
Related Tags: love, unlovable, crucifixion, categories, nerds, lovableness, church, Christianity
I remember my old Young Life days when we used to be told that our job was to learn how to love the unlovable. Would somebody please tell me what that is all about? It sounds good, but what a pile of garbage.
You see, the fact of the matter is we are all unlovable. And yet, we are all loved. Do you honestly think God bases our "lovability" on things like how we dress, or whether we are "gawky," or "developmentally disabled," or just a plain old "nerd?" Anybody who answered that rhetorical question in the affirmative can leave the building and come back when they figure it out.
God judges our "lovability" on the basis of our sinful state, and you know what?
Rom 3:23 - for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,and yet
Rom 5:8 - But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.OK, so let me see if I get this straight. God hates sin and we are all sinners and yet he loved us all enough to die for us in that sinful state. Sounds to me like we are pretty much all unlovable, but pretty much all infintely loved; sounds to me like "lovability" isn't even a adjective that exists in God's lexicon.
If we judge someone as "unlovable" we are clearly not viewing them with God's eyes. We are clearly viewing them in accordance with some standard of our own. And that standard of our own is a problem, a big problem
I Jn 4:19-21 - We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.If we find someone less than desirable as a person, then the problem is ours not theirs, and we have a pretty big problem at that.
Gal 6:14 - But may it never be that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.If we have room for such a category in our life then clearly the world has not been crucified to us and we have not been crucified to the world.
Next time you are finding someone's company wearing on you, or the next time you are trying to figure out how to handle someone's "inappropriate" behavior, just remember how God views your behavior (it's a lot more than merely inappropriate) and remember He went ahead and got curcified for you anyway. Maybe that will make it a little easier to tolerate that nerd the next time you run into him.
Related Tags: love, unlovable, crucifixion, categories, nerds, lovableness, church, Christianity
